


Daddy Lessons

by HarkerX



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha Aaron Hotchner, Alpha Hannibal Lecter, Anal Sex, Bottom Spencer Reid, Bottom Will Graham, Daddy Kink, Daddy Will Graham, Daddy lessons, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Omega Spencer Reid, Omega Will Graham, References to Knotting, Tie Kink, Top Will Graham, i think i AUd my AU, mentions of other CM characters, references to blood and slick and sweat and semen, shenanigram
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-07-10 02:41:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19898527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkerX/pseuds/HarkerX
Summary: “So you could watch Hannibal and I together, study us. To feel how we are so you can better understand what you want. What you need. Do you think Hannibal had errands that could not wait?”“No.”There is that. “Neither do I.”“And now?”“Daddy lessons.” Of a sort, of a kind. The kind that involves hands and mouths and salt. The body is easy, the heart is not. “I can give you what Hannibal can’t." What Hannibal shouldn't. "Say yes, Spencer.”





	1. Overnight Guest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FannibalToast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannibalToast/gifts).



> Oh, hello! It's Shenanigram crossover time!
> 
> This piece exists within the world of The Yellow Notebook, but I've opted to keep it outside of that series because it is not pure Hannigram. You don't have to have read The Yellow Notebook to follow along here, I mean, it's basically just porn ;) (I don't think this is a bad thing, personally ;))
> 
> Inspired by a conversation with @fannibaltoast, this story is for her. I love you my sweet friend. Let's always be Shenanigram trash.
> 
> Thank you to @electrarhodes for the beta read, you sure are a gem.

  


Will leans into the space between two panels of grey and red silk, palms to the wall. The sun has set and a light rain patters against the window, a low tap mimicking the throb behind his eyes. Behind him is the press of Hannibal, the weight of his Alpha, musk and heat, iron and salt. 

Will arches his back, an immediate Omega response that can’t be labelled, isn’t something as simple as gender. Can’t be some kind of automatic, genetic response because three years later, three years to the day he invited himself in and never left, Will no longer sees himself as separate or apart, as a man who happens to be Omega, an Omega before he is a man. 

He is only Will Graham. 

And sometimes Will Graham spends the day, into dark, on the floor of this office on his knees. Here, at the feet of Hannibal Lecter, where he feels safe. 

The ring on his finger glints in the low light and his hand is sticky with drying come. “Everything-” Will rubs the side of his face into the crook of his elbow and it’s wet salt there, too, “I-” he does not know. What he knows is this - he is shaking. He is floating. He exists beyond space, liminal and formless.

Hannibal lightly touches his neck. An easy, gentle stroke of fingers. Skin to skin. Will shudders, the whole of him contracts in a sigh. Hannibal steps back, the floor creaks under his weight, call and answer. There is then the creak of leather, a squeak. It’s as if Will’s been released, as if the cage door is open, his bonds unlocked, untied and loosened.

Will crumbles to the floor in a giddy, high-pitched laugh and drags his hands over his face, into his hair. “I’m-” but the words are cotton and he laughs again, rolling into the shape of Hannibal, into the shadow his body makes on the area rug.

“My boy,” Hannibal whispers, reaching and pulling him close, urging him closer and closer until Will’s head is on Hannibal’s lap, nestled in the soft of his pyjama pants, the soft of his red sweater. “Come closer. For the night is dark and full of terrors.”

Terrors. Murderers. Will shifts, rests his hand tight on Hannibal’s forearm. “What if I leave a mark?” A stain. A memory. Blood and salt and slick and semen. 

“My dry cleaner is excellent,” Hannibal says and of course, of course Hannibal dry cleans his sleepwear. “Are you all right?”

Is he? He closes his eyes and breathes in Alpha. Hannibal. Nudges Hannibal’s hand with the tip of his nose, mumbles something soft, something sweet. Something thankful and pushes fingers into the meat of Hannibal’s thigh. It is Yes. It is Thank you. It is _mine_. 

“Cut me open,” Will says, his flesh riddled with the history of Hannibal’s teeth, the sharp of his nails. “Until there is no scar upon me that you did not make.”

Hannibal laughs softly. “Oh, my precious boy.” He bends, kisses the soft of Will’s head, and rakes his fingers through the matt of his hair.

“I’m sticky.”

“Hrm,” Hannibal mumbles. “So you are.”

“You mind.”

“No.” As he reaches for the soft wool throw folded over the edge of a nearby chair. “Not at all.” Slowly, carefully, as if the wool might hold too much weight, he drapes the blanket over Will, over his half-naked body, over the torn fabric of his shirt. “What a gift you give me.”

Will sighs, pulls at the blanket and closes his eyes. “Might be the last one you open.” He pauses. Flexes his toes, breathes in the soft scent of wool, of soap. Rolls to the right, off and away from Hannibal, opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. Runs a hand along his belly, beneath the blanket. Wet. Sticky there too. “I think I’m bleeding.”

Hannibal’s smile has too many teeth. “I would hope so.” 

Of course he does. “What time is it?” Dark. It was light when they came here, looking for a book. 

“Eight,” Hannibal says without checking the time. Without lifting his wrist or glancing to the wall or fumbling in a pocket for a phone, for the blue-white, too bright glow all full of reminders, all full of responsibility, expectation but there is this-

 _Eight_. Which means it’s been four, five, six hours. So many hours that time lacks construct, has lost its sharp edges and the ticking of the clock grows quiet, fades away. Day is night. Night is day. Will gets himself to sitting, pulls the blanket tighter. “I should make you tea.”

“Yes.”

And then. Then there’s movement, the gentle brush of his cheek to Hannibal’s. “Thank you.” Murmured in the curve of Hannibal’s neck and a nod, in return and-

“How beautiful you are, my bright and shining boy.”

Will breathes in sweat. Salt. Sweat. His semen, but not Hannibal’s. Hannibal gets off in a hundred different ways and so many of them don’t involve his cock, don’t involve something as simple as orgasm. Just now Will is sleepy and warm and hungry but still so fucking aroused he can’t help but press his cheek to the inside of Hannibal’s thigh and nip, little puppy bites followed by a low, needing whine. 

“Tea,” Hannibal reminds him.

But sustenance is _here_. He yawns. Stretches his jaw. “Tell me there’s cookies.” 

“In the pantry,” Hannibal says and Will scuttles back. Stands. Still wrapped in the blanket like a wooly burrito and he smiles and sometimes it’s this, sometimes it’s a cotton candy, red vine, circus peanut wonderland, where his insides push into his ribs and he is sore and beat and spent and there’s a running line of scabs, of healing wounds like tracks along the length of his side, the destination is from here to there and whatever, what is love but this?

“Should I shower?” Cleanliness, after all, is next to Hannibalness. 

“No,” the man says and Will.

Will tucks the blanket under his chin and heads for the kitchen.

#

In the kitchen there is tea, steeping in an old, round pot. There are cookies; buttery madeleines and crisp, lacy florentines. Peppery salami and good bread, cheese Will doesn’t eat because it smells like feet. As the tea steeps, Will pulls a shirt from Hannibal’s closet. Burying his face in the softly woven cotton, he breathes in sandalwood and spices, peppery and sweet. 

Will’s pretty sure the bleeding has stopped. Although he’s not clean, he wipes his face, does what he can with the mess of his hair, the sticky, drying tangle. There are places on his body that have started to itch; dried sweat and dried semen. Dried blood. A warmth in the back of his neck, a reminder of Hannibal’s teeth, brutal and tearing on the day they mated.

On the day they made it forever. 

#

Widening the door with the tip of his toe, Will knocks into the wood with his hip, careful of the tray. Voices. Conversation. Might be speakerphone, but there’s a shadow and Will looks up from the tray.

Another man stands in the room, narrow and tall, disheveled. Damp. Nervous. Moving his hands as if casting magic. 

“Will,” Hannibal says, without turning around. “Meet Doctor Spencer Reid.”

All of a sudden Will’s the help, the boyfriend, the butler with his tray of tea and cookies, that cheese he won’t eat because it smells like feet and the salami with the peppered edges. 

“Doctor.” He could be addressing either of them. But there’s a memory of the name Reid, a consult, a case.

“Will,” Dr. Reid says, taking a step forward. 

Will’s close enough to Hannibal’s desk, so there’s a spot for the tray but there’s the matter of Will, who doesn’t look or feel anything but well-fucked and there is salt in his hair, on his chest and Doctor Spencer Reid- “Tea?” This is not how he wanted to meet Hannibal’s co-worker. 

“Please,” Hannibal says and then… “Have your shower. Dr. Reid will be spending the night.”

“Right,” Will says as if sleepovers are logical, and Hannibal smiles, nods as if Will has done a good, right thing. And because he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, and because Spencer Reid is about eleven kinds of gorgeous, seemingly distracted, and twitching. Hannibal wears an expression Will has seen once or twice before, calculated amusement, the plotting of nefarious plans. Will pours the tea and goes upstairs. Showers. Changes the sheets in the guest room.

Considers Dr. Reid and the way his tie was loose at the neck, exposing the sharp of his Adam’s apple, and the way he glanced at Will as if he had a secret. 

#

Will stays out of everyone’s way. For Hannibal’s benefit, for his, for the new, good doctor. Will stays out of everyone’s way for so long by the time the bedroom door opens and Hannibal crosses the threshold Will has told himself eight different stories about why Dr. Reid is staying the night. Why Hannibal invited him. 

Will has told himself eight different stories - that Reid might want-slash-need Hannibal and work, it's probably just work related, but the rolling knot in Will’s belly says its something else, tells its own tale, and so by the time Hannibal crosses the threshold Will doesn’t know if he wants to get laid or pick a fight and sometimes there’s no actual difference between those two states and Hannibal is happy to oblige either because both tend to end with Will lying on the floor.

“I think I’m jealous.” 

“Jealousy,” Hannibal says, “is a fear. An assumption. A matter of comparison and perceived inadequacy.”

“Lanky. Good cheekbones. Marginally disheveled and either way not concerned about bespoke, or even ironed. Slight social awkwardness.” He pauses, sure Hannibal is following along. “Fluffy hair that’s just a little too long. Pretty eyes.”

“Also an unmated Omega.” Hannibal touches his lip with the tip of his tongue. “But you do make a compelling argument.”

“Should I wait up?” Will teases. 

The older man grunts and waves his hand, then points to the bed and flattens his palm. Will is very familiar with the sounds Hannibal makes when he is displeased. Will is a well trained puppy. 

“You still haven’t fucked me today,” Will reminds him, as he crawls over the sheets and flops onto his belly.

“Millennials,” Hannibal huffs. “Have such strange ideas of what constitutes sex and what does not.”

“I’m forty-four.”

“And still confused.”

“I remember sex ed,” Will says, leaning to his right as he makes a circle with his index and thumb, then motions to prove his point. “We’re supposed to be making babies.” Something shifts in Hannibal. His face softens. This is not a conversation they’ve had before. Dr. Spencer Reid has caused Hannibal to think. Pulling up a knee, Will plants a hand on the bed and shifts, sitting up as he tugs a blanket over his legs. “Do we need to —”

“Talk about having children?”

Will lifts a shoulder. “Yes.” Neither of them, neither of them are particularly well adjusted. Will is prickly, fiercely attached to his space, his privacy. Hannibal is finicky and precise and so demanding. Not just of Will, but of everyone in his orbit. But there is also this-

Hannibal loves more deeply than anyone Will knows, maybe more than Will is capable of.

“I am an old man.” Hannibal reaches, touching Will’s cheek.

“Between the two of us, I’m sure some of our sperm is viable,” Will says. “We certainly expend a great deal of it on a regular basis” Him especially. 

“Semen volume does not correlate to viable-”

Will lifts a hand. “Biology, yes, I took the class.” How Hannibal surprises him, not in the correction, but in the curiosity, in the way he looks now, as if they are having two distinct and separate conversations. “But you didn’t answer my question.” 

“I do not have an answer for your question.” Hannibal’s hands finds his way to his sweater, the tie of his pyjama pants, but he seems unexpectedly out of sorts, his mind here and elsewhere.

Will slides from the bed, the blanket puddling to the floor. “May I?”

Hannibal nods, smoothes his hands down his front and when Will touches his chest, wraps his hand around Will’s wrist and squeezes. 

“Neatly.”

So Will is careful as he undresses Hannibal. There is this: when Hannibal wobbles, when his world tilts slightly to the left, he corrects it by being _correct_. In act, in the demanding of respect. Attention. Care. So when Will goes to his knees, it is not foreplay. It is a steady hand. It is reverence. It is the righting of his wobbly husband.

The hand on his cheek knows no hesitation, nor the thumb, tracing the line of his cheekbone, the hollows, the line of his jaw, the seam of his lip, pressing. Pressing into a warm and waiting mouth.

“Widen,” Hannibal says and Will.

Will places his hands on Hannibal’s hips and leans in, burying his nose in the course, greying hair. He closes his eyes and it’s not until there is the tap of knuckle underneath his chin that he moves to Hannibal’s cock.

“You don’t consider this sex?”

Will licks a long, wet line along the underside, licks up and over Hannibal’s cockhead, flicking his tongue into the moist, salted slit. 

“I consider this love.”

“What parents we might make,” Hannibal says, cupping the back of Will’s head and pulling him in, pressing until he fills the whole of Will’s throat, until Will twitches, blinks. “Easy.”

With Hannibal, it is easy for Will to be as he is, devoid of pretence. To be on his knees, to feel the warmth of his own body, the way his Omega calls to Alpha, a part of him but not apart. Omega is the reason he came to Hannibal, but it is not the reason he stayed.

It is not the reason he is here, knees to the hardwood, his hair a mess of uneven curls, rocking in time with the attention paid to Hannibal’s cock, an easy pull and drag until breath is breath. Until Hannibal stutters and sighs. Until release and Will.

Swallows all of Hannibal. 

And then licks him clean.

#

The moon is enough to wake him. In a yawn, a rolling stretch of too many limbs and Hannibal sleeps like a corpse. When Will wakes his hair is matted, creases mark his cheeks from too-pressed linen, and there’s drool, dried on his chin. 

Or perhaps not drool, but he slips out of the bedroom and heads down the hall.

The bathroom light is gentle, warm. Will wets his face, wipes it clean on towels so soft he doesn’t think he will ever get used to them. There is a list of things he misses about Wolf Trap, but his old linens are not one of them.

He scratches at his belly with his left hand as he kills the light with his right. There is dark and then a soft glow, a second slip of warmth, a line of light over the hardwood.

Spencer Reid isn’t sleeping.

#

Will touches his hand to the doorframe, knocks with his knuckles. The door isn’t quite open, but it’s not quite closed.

“I’m awake,” Spencer says.

“I guess me too,” and he’s not sure why he stopped or why he knocked. Curiosity. Concern. He didn’t expect their first conversation to be in boxer shorts. But now he’s here.

“You can come in.”

Can. Maybe shouldn’t. He scratches his collarbone. At least he put on his t-shirt. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Spencer says. “Of course.” 

There’s a chair in the corner, because Hannibal. Because Hannibal believes in two things: lighting and properly arranged seating.

And dinner parties.

So three things.

And fine clothing. So four. And decadent meals. So five. 

“There’s blankets, if you’re cold.” More blankets, Will means. Because Hannibal also believes in luxury comforters. So that’s six. How anyone sleeps on more than two pillows is beyond him. 

“Not cold.” Spencer taps his temple. “Busy. You can sit, if you like, we can think together.”

And if Hannibal has a type, well, here is Spencer Reid. “Ah, yeah.” But he sits and of course there’s a blanket folded over the arm of the chair. Easy to unfold, drape over his lap. 

“Did Hannibal tell you why I was here?” 

If Hannibal had planned to, well. “We got caught up in other things.”

Spencer smiles. Too broad and too brightly for all they are strangers. “An unmated Omega notices these other things.”

Oh. If he were an unmated Omega in this house? He’s been an unmated Omega in this house and licked his own spend from the floor. “It’s possible I’m oversexed.” There’s got to be a reason why he says it, why he’s honest. 

“Hannibal respects indulgences.” 

More like Hannibal expects Will to indulge him, but yes, “He does.” And then. “Why are you here?” The question doesn’t seem rude until he asks it.

“You,” Spencer answers, as if it wasn’t.

Will’s face tightens. “Not the answer I was expecting.”

“Hannibal and I worked together, and when we worked together, your name came up in conversation. He was careful of how many times he mentioned your name. How he spoke of you.”

“I’m not a secret.” Neither is their relationship. Early on Freddie Lounds referred to him as ‘belonging to Hannibal Lecter’. It took a while for Will to agree with her. “I get talked about.” For more reasons than just being Hannibal’s Omega.

“Context. It’s context. Body language. There’s a standard model for how partners speak of each other and if you listen closely, you can determine the nature of their relationship through either partner’s language. You can determine role, preference. You can determine if there’s an attachment to traditional Alpha/Omega structure, or if the couple has abandoned expectation.” He pauses. “You can tell if both partners are happy.”

“Hannibal’s happy,” Will says.

“Yes. And so are you.”

“Yeah. So.” He didn’t answer the question.“You came here to study me?”

Spencer looks too comfortable tucked in their bedding. 

“I came here for Aaron Hotchner.” 

“Is who?” Will’s never heard the name before.

“The Alpha with whom Spencer wishes to mate.”

Hannibal.

Will and Spencer look to the door at the same time. Immediately, Will sees himself as exposed, undressed, like he shouldn’t be here, whispering with this stranger in the half dark. Instead of apologizing. Instead of standing. Instead of going to the place at Hannibal’s feet...instead, he says this - “I’m sure there’s a logical reason why you agreed to have me studied.” 

“There is,” Hannibal says. “And we’ll discuss it in the morning.”

Will bristles. Pinches the place between his eyes. “That is all the answer I deserve?”

“It’s late. It’s the answer you get.”

“You’re sending me to bed.”

Hannibal glances at Spencer. “Yes, but not our bed. Sleep here instead.” 

When Hannibal steps out of the room, Will turns to Dr. Reid. “What arrangement did you two make?” Will is no stranger to one-night-stands, no stranger to strangers and isn’t particular about where his body ends up, or with whom, or didn’t used to be, until Hannibal. 

“None. I told him that I have nightmares,” Spencer tucks back under the covers as if going to sleep. “Some of them look like ending up alone.”

“Like an unmated Omega.” Will doesn’t say it to be mean, his voice too soft to hurt. He remembers before Hannibal. He remembers being alone.

“I keep asking,” Spencer replies. “Hannibal really does care for you.”

Something in Spencer’s voice hits him in two places and so he heads for the bed and crawls in and when Spencer rolls over, Will becomes big spoon. “This all right?” 

Spencer nods into his pillow. “Hannibal also told me a Daddy takes care of his boy.”

Will wonders what Spencer asked of Aaron Hotchner. What Aaron Hotchner is so afraid of. “Very good care,” Will murmurs and because Hannibal does take care of his boy, he kisses Spencer’s hair. Whatever test this is, whatever Hannibal wants from Will, he’ll do his best to pass. “Now go to sleep.”

Spencer reaches and turned off the light. When it is clear, despite the coming of dawn, that both of them haven’t yet fallen asleep, Will says, “Tell me about Aaron.”

And Spencer did.

And when morning came, and Will woke and found he had not moved, he splayed his palm over Spencer’s belly and thought about all of the other things his Daddy did for him, and how even though he didn’t always use the word, the honourific, it was the comfort they’d fallen into, it was how Will served Hannibal and it was how Hannibal served him return. 

“I can feel you thinking,” Spencer whispered. “Tell me what about?”

A simple question. “Hannibal. Aaron. The weight of forever. You and the feel of you. The idea of caring, of taking care.” He pauses. “And the ways in which we do that.” How Will might do that, just now, and the way in which Hannibal does that, and how there’s this desire, a spark, and the feel of Spencer beneath his open hand, warm and sweet. 

Hannibal is often warm.

Hannibal is not often sweet. And maybe Will is too honest, but he doesn’t feel a need to lie, to mask what he wants to ask with small talk. “When was your last heat?” 

“I think you’re more interested in when my next one is.”

Will can’t help but smile. “I suppose that’s probably true. So when.”

“Two weeks.”

“Aaron?” This piece, heat and rut and mating, is the piece they didn’t cover. When Spencer talked about Aaron, with only the moon to overhear them, he told Will of his smile, his seriousness, the way he loves his son and how he tried to make a life with his ex-wife. What the weather was like on the day they met. The important things, other important things.

Spencer wiggles against him, a full body no. “He’s old fashioned. Feels that an Omega should only go through heat with the intended Alpha if the intent is to bond.”

“Your intent is to bond, and I assume his is, too?” 

“My intent is to bond with him. And that’s what I told him and he-” Spencer pauses. “He will only bond as part of the mating cycle and he will not mate with an Omega he does not intend to bond and he does not make rash decisions. He supports surrogates, suppressants. I went off them six months ago, and so there’s a surrogate-”

“Not all of us have those rules.” The words just tumble out and Will grasps but can’t pull them back in time. Such small words, but oh, the space they take up. “There are other options. Not surrogates.” He pauses. “Other omegas.” It’s unusual, but it’s not unheard of. 

“I suppose it's worth mentioning that I’m attracted to you, too,” Spencer whispers. “I didn’t expect that, but I’m not disappointed.”

Too. _Also_. Will doesn’t answer right away. Two reasons, because sometimes he does feel the need to lie and also Hannibal. But there is this — Hannibal has never asked Will to hold back his feelings, to deny himself pleasure or pain unless it pleased Hannibal, and even then what pleases Hannibal pleases Will and Hannibal told him to be here, to sleep next to this warm and needing body and there’s probably a million reasons for that.

Will breathes his response into Spencer’s spine, into the curl of his hair, two shades lighter than Will’s own. “Neither am I” Spencer is taller, leaner, but with how simply Will fits around him, it’s easy for Will to think of Spencer as _boy_. 

“And Hannibal-”

But Will doesn’t let him finish. “Hannibal put me in this bed to see what would happen.” Because of course he did. 

It’s then that Spencer rolls over, faces him. “And you stayed because you wanted to find out too.”

“Yes.” Will reaches, grazing Spencer’s cheek with the back of his hand. “But first, water.” He pauses. “Don’t go anywhere.”

The house is quiet. When Hannibal leaves, the air changes. Will pads to the kitchen, finds the glasses, the filtered water.

Finds the note left next to the sink.

_Errands._

_Do what thou wilt._

_-H_

#

Glasses go on the nightstand, careful of condensation and ring marks. Will hands Spencer the paper as he crawls back into bed. “Do what thou Wilt.”

“Shall be the whole of the Law,” Spencer finishes and Will lifts a hand in question.

“Thelemite philosophy,” Spencer tells him, reaching for one of the glasses. “The idea that acting on desire should be paramount, if that desire brings one closer to the truth.” He takes a slow, careful sip. “Truth of who you are, and your great work.”

His great work. Spencer is where Will left him. That Spencer _stayed_ brings a warmth, a desire that Will very much wants to act upon. Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law. When the law is Hannibal’s. “My great work. I help people hunt serial killers.” 

Spencer puts down the glass. “Me too”

Which of course Will knew already. 

They sit on the bed in silence. Silence until the water is gone. Until the room is awash in morning light, until dust motes shimmer in sunbeams and the room warms enough that Will kicks away the blankets and sprawls out, his back the mattress. Spencer stays sitting for a while, until Will says, “Do what thou Wilt.”

And Spencer does. Shuffling down, he curls his knees up and puts his head on Will’s chest. Will pulls him close, and then closer. 

“You’re his submissive,” Spencer says. It’s not a question. Will has never had this conversation with anyone, not even Hannibal, for they fell into their relationship organically. Will would say “over time” if over time is the first time Hannibal mounted him, the second time they fucked, the third time Hannibal ordered him to the floor and Will stayed there.

“Sexually, yes.” It is more than possible that Will is oversexed. Even for an Omega. There’s no shame in it. What Will wants is to be all of the things Hannibal needs and for Hannibal to need him in return.

“The general construct around Daddy also exists in kink communities, with the understanding that the Boy is submissive.” 

It comes out like instruction. “Are you telling me something, Dr. Reid?”

“I think so,” he says. “That the idea of care and comfort, of reference and respect, comes in two forms.”

“General care and feeding.” Hannibal as Daddy. A safe place for Will to fall apart. “And the meeting of sexual needs without judgement.” 

“Yes.”

It’s easy for Will to run a hand along Spencer’s shoulder, down his arm. To close his eyes and perhaps not notice, not right away, that Spencer’s own hand trails, that there are fingers beneath Will’s waistband and Will makes a low noise as if warning Spencer he has noticed where his hand has gone. “If you want something, you need to ask.” How many times has Hannibal said the same thing to Will? _Do you want release or comfort?_

“Let me touch you,” Spencer says, pushing his nose into the middle of Will’s chest.

“There’s no risk in that.” It's easy to give. Harder to receive. It’s deflection. “You touch me, I spill in your hand and I’m vulnerable, open. You lick my come from your fingers, but it’s me, coming undone for you. If I were Aaron, is that what you would ask for?”

“No.”

Of course not. Then. “Get up, Spencer” He pauses. “Maybe it’s Daddy Lesson time.” Will knows better than to think that whatever he offers Reid will be anything like what Aaron gives him. Just as every moment, every shudder, every naked roll-around whatever with Anthony is nothing like when Will and Hannibal are alone, when it is only Will and the sound of his Alpha’s voice.

His master’s voice and his supplication upon the altar Hannibal built with his own hands.

When Spencer doesn’t move, Will gives him a push, lifting beneath him. “Throw on your sweater, with the rain it gets cold in the house.”

When Spencer moves, Will uncurls from the bed and finds one of Hannibal’s spare robes and tosses it over his shoulders. “We’re going downstairs.”

Will follows Spencer, follows the pale of his legs and the loose of his boxer shorts and the way his cardigan hangs from the sharp of his shoulders. 

In truth, Will could get used to the view.

#

Will brings Spencer an orange. A cup of coffee paled by cream. Spencer stands at the window, looking out in the mid-morning light, the green of the grass, still damp from last night’s rain. Will stands behind him, close enough that if he took a too-deep breath, his air might also fill Spencer’s lungs. 

“You’re good?” Will murmurs. 

Spencer nods, moves to speak, a tumble of syllables Will muffles with the palm of his left hand. His right presses into Spencer’s stomach, thumb tucked behind the elastic of Spencer’s boxers. A promise. A question. His left hand cups the boy’s neck, just below his Adam’s apple. “You told Aaron what you wanted, didn’t you?”

Spencer nods.

“And he either told you that you weren’t ready, or he is biding time because he is not ready.”

This time Spencer nods twice, but he also shakes his head. 

“And maybe you told him about Hannibal and the way he spoke of me and so Aaron sent you here, so we could show you what it looked like. So you could watch us navigate each other through this house.”

Spencer makes a small nose. 

“So you could watch Hannibal and I together, study us. To feel how we are so you can better understand what you want. What you need. Do you think Hannibal had errands that could not wait?”

“No.”

There is that. “Neither do I.” 

“And now?”

“Daddy lessons.” Of a sort, of a kind. The kind that involves hands and mouths and salt. The body is easy, the heart is not. “I can give you what Hannibal can’t." What Hannibal shouldn't. "Say yes, Spencer.”

“Yes,” Spencer sighs, leaning back into Will.

Will turns his thumb, tugging at Spencer’s boxers as if moving to slide them down, but it’s not necessary, there are other ways for Will to touch him. “I’ll take care of you for Aaron. I’ll make sure he knows you were kept warm and safe and fed and sated. I’ll tell him you pleased me. All you have to do,” as he lightly strokes the skin of Spencer’s belly with the pad of his thumb. “Is be a good boy.”

It’s easy, he knows, for Spencer to drop his chin. To accept, fall in and under. 

“Can you do that for me? Can you be good?”

Spencer nods and rubs his jaw against the curve of Will’s hand. “Yes.”

“And you’ll be good for Aaron? If he wants you?” 

Spencer answers in a gasp. Will presses in, holds the other man steady as his hand drifts, cupping Spencer’s hardening cock. “Would you kneel for him?” With an easy, gentle stroke of fingers, a lazy squeeze. “Rest your head on his thigh, let him stroke your hair.” He turns his hand in the open fabric, finding wet, the weeping slit. Digs his nail until Spencer groans. “Bond with him and then make him tea?”

Spencer twists as if Will’s touch is too much but then he whispers _yes, yes, yes_. 

“Do you want me to tell him how you feel when you sleep? The soft lilt of air and how you sigh, how you hold on, even to strangers?”

“Yes.” 

Will has no qualms reporting on Spencer’s behavior. Hannibal will expect his opinion and there’s a very good chance Reid is an A student. 

“If you please me, I’ll tell him you were a good boy. I’ll tell him you did what you were told and then I’ll tell him I wanted to keep you.” Because of course, Will already does. This boy who smells like wool and rainwater, softened by sleep. 

“Please.” Spencer’s fingers draw lines on the cold glass.

“Please what?”

“Just please touch me.” 

Will does, if the gentle brush of fingers over Spencer’s mouth counts, or the press of his thumb into the space beneath Spencer’s chin, or the way he digs his own cock into the soft of Spencer’s ass. If that counts as touching, then Will does touch. 

“Will…” Spencer digs in his heels and lifts his chest, his pelvis, pressing himself into Will’s hand.

“Not Will, not now.” Not ever, and maybe Aaron Hotchner won’t mind sharing. Hannibal doesn’t, sometimes.

Spencer swallows. “Daddy, please.”

Wills throat tightens and he sighs into the curl of Spencer’s hair. “Mrrm, like that. Again. Tell Daddy what you need.”

Spencer digs a hand into the meat of Will’s thigh, gripping his pant leg, pulls and pulls at the fabric and Will murmurs softly, urging and gentling.

“Make me come.”

And Will. How easy it is to circle Spencer’s cock, to fist the hard of him, smear salt and pre-come along his length. To tug softly and squeeze just a little bit too hard as his teeth find Spencer’s neck, the space beside his scent gland, a place Spencer has reserved for Aaron’s teeth. He bites down softly. A future promise that is not his to make. He pulls Spencer’s skin into his mouth until it blooms crimson. 

“How many times could you come to please him, Spencer?” Will bites again, harder this time. “While he held you, kissed you. Told you how perfect and beautiful you are?”

Spencer answers on his tiptoes, angling to rut against Will’s hand. 

“Answer me, Spencer.”

Spencer’s halfway to delirious, but answers anyway. “As many times as you want.”

“Four,” Will says because six is his first thought but that just seems cruel. “Four would please me.” Here they will start with one. 

Will leans forward, further closing the gap between their bodies, between Spencer and the window. The boy’s breath fogs the glass. Tightening his left arm around Spencer’s body, Will slides his hand all the way to the base of Spencer’s cock. “Fuck my hand.”

Spencer does. With abandon, as if Will’s demand is permission. 

As if this boy is some extension of him, of his own pleasure and need and desire and for a moment, for a moment all Will sees is Hannibal smiling his approval, his hand in Will’s hair, fingers curled around curls and a sudden, urgent tug, but it’s Will’s hand and the tug is too hard, too tight and Spencer.

Spencer yelps, a high, sharp snap of pain that makes Will’s cock jump.

“Easy,” Will murmurs and somehow it’s that, it’s enough. Spencer groans his release over Will’s fingers, so thick and warm and Will nuzzles into Spencer’s hair, kissing the back of his head.

“Fuck me.” His laugh low, sweet. “I should keep you.”

He is only half kidding. There is a comfort in this too, in being the one to watch over, the one who manages all the monsters in the closet. The one that doesn’t run or hide. What Will would do with this boy at his feet, this boy’s head in his lap. Slowly, he brings his clean hand to the top of Spencer’s shoulder and pushes him down, urging him to the floor, backing up to give him space. Spencer fumbles with his pants, holding them up and bending as he can, an awkward fold until he’s kneeling, still facing away from Will. 

Will likes him awkward. “Hands to the floor.” 

Spencer’s panting, trembling and Will lowers himself. Gets down, tugs at the rough of Spencer’s cardigan and pulls him in until it’s arms and Spencer’s shaking body and Will’s soft comfort. “I have you,” Will says. “Daddy’s got you.”

“I-” Spencer starts but doesn’t finish.

Will murmurs approval and strokes Spencer’s cheek, his thumb to cheekbone sharp, to the edges that could make this boy look hard, but somehow. Somehow there is only softness, a yearning and a latent a want, as if there is only a need to understand, to fall so deeply into clarity, into revelation.

To become. A feeling Will understands completely.

“What if I ask to keep you?” Will says again and Spencer makes himself small in his arms. “What if I’m the one you make tea for, the one who kneels at my feet? What if I fuck you properly, Spencer? Fill you full and then drink you dry?” 

“There is little,” Spencer whispers and then clears his throat, “precedence for two Omegas to enter into relationships exhibiting traditional Alpha/Omega structure. Alphas rarely agree to relationship possibilities wherein Omegas are allowed secondary relationships that are more than casual, that provide more than sexual release. Literature-”

“Shhh,” Will cuts him off. “I don’t want scientific studies, Spencer. I want an answer. A truthful answer.”

It’s a test. A question. Not fair, anyway, given Spencer’s damp with his own come and Will’s fingers are sticky with it. Not fair given how tightly he holds onto the boy, buries his nose into the soft off is curls and then kisses his neck. Not fair, given the room smells of slick. Not fair given Hannibal’s pheromones mark every inch of this room. Not fair given Will’s still hard and he’s sure Spencer can feel the line of his cock pressing into the small of his back.

“Aaron,” he says. “I don’t know, he-”

There is this- a pebble of disappointment drops into Will’s belly - they’ve only met and what a mistake it would be, but this is different than Anthony, different than Anthony’s irreverent need for sex and entertainment, and something turned over in Will when Spencer called him Daddy. When Spencer came in his arms. “Lean forward.”

Spencer does. Will rucks up Spencer’s sweater, the shirt underneath, peppers the line of Spencer’s spine with gentle, soft kisses. There’s no demand in it. Not until Will covers Spencer’s body with his own, a cradle that keeps Spencer there, beneath him, Will’s body a cage and Will ruts gently into the curve of Spencer’s ass. “Does the literature,” he whispers, “mind if I mount you?”

Of course Will does not mean the literature, he means Spencer. Would Spencer mind. Would Spencer want?

Spencer lowers to his elbows. Improving the angle. “I am not yet mated.”

“I’d like to meet this Aaron,” Will says as he leans back, shuffling off his boxers, but leaving the t shirt, the robe. Markers of Hannibal. Taking himself in hand, he strokes softly. “I’d like to hear the sounds you make when he’s inside you. I’d like to hear you beg for your Daddy’s cock.”

At that, Spencer reaches back, grabbing the waistband of his own shorts.

“Let me,” Will says, and Spencer resumes the position. It’s easy for Will to slide Spencer’s boxers down, to help, to laugh as Spencer’s ankle gets caught and then his baby toe. Easy for Will to lick a slow, easy line up the side of Spencer’s ribcage, to drag his thumb between Spencer’s cleft, to find warmth and slick. “I’ll have to thank Hannibal for this.”

It’s rare that for an Omega to trigger another Omega’s mate response, but Hannibal is everywhere in this room, and there is a reason why Will often makes luminol and black light jokes Hannibal does not find amusing. “Or maybe you can thank him yourself.”

Spencer whines, dips his head. Will wraps a hand around the boy’s waist, draws him closer. “Say yes, Spencer.”

“Okay, yes.”

“Good boy,” as Will shifts position, the carpet digging into his knees but at least it's not the hardwood. Not yet. Hannibal likes hardwood. Will likes the feel of Spencer beneath him, the warmth of his welcoming wet and the way Spencer shakes and lifts to Will’s touch, whining when Will finally finds his entrance, when Will finally presses a finger in, breaches and strokes. “Tell me what you want.”

Spencer turns his head. Will leans to the right. Spencer’s not smiling but Will recognizes the expression all the time. “Daddy.”

Will squeezes his eyes closed, breathes in the scent of Spencer’s slick, of his own arousal and fuck him. Fuck Hannibal and his terrible/good ideas and fuck this need Will has to obliterate this perfect, gorgeous man beneath him. “I need to hear it, baby.”

“God, just fuck me,” Spencer whines and Will laughs, swatting Spencer’s side. There are condoms on the small table. Hannibal made sure. Made sure just in case and bless his fucking Alpha, who would kill any other Alpha that looked at Will sideways who wasn’t Anthony, but gets off on the idea of Will burying himself into some almost-stranger because he likes to see what Happens and also maybe Aaron wanted Spencer to sow some wild oats and Will would eat porridge daily if it looked and smelled like Spencer fucking Reid.

Will takes hold of himself again, digging his free hand into the meat of Spencer’s ass, widening. Spreading. Presses his cockhead over Spencer’s heat and pushes. Pushes through Spencer’s groan, his own low moan until he is buried. If he’d planned this part, he would have grabbed a toy from the toy box, one with a knot. But there is no way Will is pulling out now, not when he can shift. Angle enough that Spencer gasps. 

“That’s it,” Will says. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

Spencer doesn’t. Does his best to stay so statue still even as Will angles to find all the right places, to press the head of his cock over Spencer's prostate, clear in how Spencer pants that everything is good, clear in how Spencer tries so hard not to shake, even as the scent of his precome fills the room.

“The first time Aaron fucks you, I want you to tell me how it felt.” He leans over, nipping Spencer’s neck. “I want you to tell me as you work your cock. I want to hear you come with his name on your tongue.”

The floor creaks. Will wraps a hand around Spencer’s hip, pulls him back.

Again the floor. Footsteps. The air changes, a shadow covers them both.

Hannibal. Will freezes. Spencer murmurs, a sound that goes up at the end like a question. Will nudges the back of his hair, a gentle calming, but then Spencer. Spencer lifts and whines, it’s Omega, that need, the mating want and desire, an urgency.

Will drives his cock deep. There’s a moment, that moment when Will again hits just the right spot and the whole of Spencer shudders and groans, and then the boy is bucking, urging Will to fuck him, and Will, and _fuck_ if Will, “Fuck, if I could knot you,” he spits out, coming in a sudden impossible surge, a wave that blacks out the whole of the room, turns his vision to stars, but he doesn’t stop, can’t stop until Spencer shudders and in return Will thrusts, pushes Spencer’s face to the floor and there’s that moment when everything quiets, as if death has taken them. Will wraps an arm around Spencer’s waist, his hip, finds the glorious heat of his cock and all he has to do is 

touch

and the room fills a second time with the scent of Spencer Reid. 

Will bends, drops his chin, kisses Spencer’s shoulder but then the kiss is a bite, a gnawing, desperate wish that it could be Spencer’s neck, the pulse of his mating gland and bond, to have blood fill his mouth. To drink.

It might be hormones. It’s not fucking hormones. 

Spencer’s spend is salt and promise. Will arches and licks his fingers clean. Spencer. Such a good, perfect boy, pants out air, his body milking Will’s cock. 

It takes too long for Will to pull out, to drag the condom off, tie the end and toss it somewhere near the waste bin as he rolls over, onto his back. 

“Will,” Spencer says and Will nods for no reason as Spencer tugs at him, curls into him. “What if he says no?”

Not exactly the post-coital pillow talk he’s used to, normally there’s at least three more commands, two requests that aren’t requests and whatever else tickles Hannibal’s fancy.

Part of why Will loves him.

“He won’t, he’ll think about you being fucked by me and regret all the hours he could have had you. He’ll remember that you’re perfect.” Will says, finally, all sweat and afterglow, his arm over Spencer and he bites him again, too hard, but from the sound Spencer makes it might be just hard enough. “So fucking perfect.”

#

Hannibal is in the kitchen, Spencer in the shower. 

There’s what Will knows, that Hannibal can be possessive and jealous. Nothing happens within this house that Hannibal does not want, prefer. Orchestrate with a wave of his hand. 

It’s then that Will realizes. “I didn’t kiss him.” 

“You mounted him.”

But never kissed him. “Do what thou Wilt?” 

“I wasn’t sure if you knew the reference.”

“Spencer knew the reference.” He pauses. “Did I cross the line?”

“No, but you tapped it with your toe, brushed it with the tip of your finger. Do you think that is wise, Will? To find a puddle of water and dive in, never mind the depth?” 

There is no good or right answer. There is this - Hannibal is not talking about sex, he is talking about want. He is talking about whatever Will feels, right now, for Spencer Reid. Things that are just post-fuck, when Will is never at his most logical, his clearest. “Hannibal.”

All the other man does is point. He doesn’t flatten his hand, that’s a different command. But he points and it is one, two, three strides and Will is at his Alpha’s side, eyes down, looking at the floor, the barest inch of space between them as Hannibal’s hand curls around Will’s neck and squeezes, digging his thumb into the underside of Will’s jaw until he whimpers.

“If you want to keep him, I would let you have him.”

Will blinks brushes his cheek into Hannibal’s collarbone. “Aaron.”

“A wrong word from me….”

Of course Hannibal offers. It’s immediate, the shake of Will’s head and no, no, no. “Fuck, no.” The last thing he wants is to hurt that boy. 

“Language,” with a kiss to Will’s head as punctuation. “But maybe you do need someone of your own to care for, to take care of. Nurture.” He pauses. “It would be good for you.”

“Dumbass,” Will laughs softly. “I have you for that.”

It’s out before Will can swallow it back, out before he can think to move out of Hannibal’s orbit. Out before the next breath. A blink and the floor rushes up to meet him. Hannibal presses his cheek so hard into the floor pain shoots up the line of his jaw. As usual, the whole of it goes right to his cock. 

“I’m interrupting.”

“Will was merely being insolent,” Hannibal says, gripping the neck of Will’s shirt and hauling him up. “But I suspect his insolence has now passed.”

Good thing Hannibal is so certain.

“I’m not familiar with this situation’s protocol,” Spencer says. “Thank you seems inappropriate, noting that your soap is well cured and has an excellent, comforting lather lacks emotional connection, but using someone else’s toiletries does speak to a certain familiarity, an intimacy saved for certain house guests, but not others, who would, most likely, be offered a less expensive, even disposable cleansing option, and be relegated to the guest bathroom, which I was not.”

“You’re welcome,” Will says for both of them, as if he wasn’t just face down on the kitchen floor in a puddle of his own drool. “It’s nice soap.”

“It’s a nice soap,” Spencer repeats. “Aaron texted that he will be late coming back from Minnesota. If you could confirm your address, I can call a car.” 

The right, appropriate thing, then, is for Hannibal—

“So you will stay with us until he arrives. I believe that would be Will’s preference.”

Prefer over what, Will doesn’t know, because what can Hannibal already know about what he’s feeling except that he already admitted he wanted to keep Spencer Reid. Part of that is because Reid, perfect, disheveled and feels too much, makes Will feel safe and in control. Will prefers the things he can control.

But what he knows about Hannibal is that he prefers Will to remain in situations wherein he is cared for, watched over and inclined to lose control. Prefer implies preference, implies ownership. If this was Hannibal, it would be a test, a marker. To not care for Will, is to risk Hannibal. 

“He-” The smile is crooked, even as warmth spreads up Spencer’s cheeks “Expressed appreciation for your hospitality and is looking forward to meeting you both.”

Hannibal hums in Will’s hear, pinching him softly. Will yelps and squirms, twisting away. 

“Be dressed and at the table for seven.” Hannibal pauses. “All messes are to be cleaned up.”

Will could use another shower. Spencer’s already clean and if their time together is short, Will isn’t interested in wasting any of it on a comforting lather. 

“Hey,” Will says to Spencer, reaching for his hand, “you should come meet the dogs.”

  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Will leads Spencer through the house and out the backdoor. There’s a mudroom that has never seen mud and beyond that, beyond the back door, a stone path leads to what might have been a mother-in-law suite, a guest house, a place for Will if Hannibal ever changed his mind or a place for Anthony, if he did. 

But now it’s where the dogs are. Where they go if its raining, if there’s a risk of mud in the mudroom, a risk of paw prints or water left unattended on Hannibal’s floors. Will’s lived here for years, what feels like the whole of his life, but if there’s a smudge on the appliances, or a spot of water on the floor, or a fingerprint on glass, then these objects become Hannibal’s. 

When the house looks lived in, when things are slightly out of place, it becomes Will’s.

When the weather is terrible, this building goes to the dogs. 

“Hannibal has pets?”

Interesting how Spencer also separates them, this house, Hannibal, Will. “Price of admission.” 

Spencer frowns. They are still holding hands. “A cost?”

“For me. Hannibal wanted me. I came with dogs.”

Spencer seems to consider that a moment, but then Will’s knocking and pulling open an unlocked door. There’s a doggie door, too, and he has crawled through it, but he doesn’t have a need to tell Spencer that story.

The moment the door opens, the dogs pounce. One small, the other taller, wiry, older. 

“Buster.” Who responds to the snap of Will’s finger, to the turn of his hand, who shuffles back and sits on his haunches, expectant. 

“And Winston.” He nods to the second. “This is Spencer.” He reaches down, scratching Winston’s neck. Side of the road Winston and in some ways that’s how Will came to Hannibal, not weak, just a little bit lost and looking for a home. “Spencer, this is everyone.” Almost. “Some of everyone.”

Buster stands and comes closer, nudges Wills ankles and bites softly at his socks. 

“Where are the rest?”

“In Wolf Trap,” Will says, dropping to the floor. His heel pushes up the area rug, this house homey in the way Hannibal’s house is not, a contrast to clean lines, to stainless steel and glass and sharp edges, and Buster climbs into his lap, does two turns and then sits, his nose in the crook of Will’s elbow. “There’s more, I see them on weekends if the weather’s okay.” Buster, Winston, then the other five, scurrying around his white house in the middle of nowhere. The bed in the living room and the soft rumble-snore of chasing-rabbit-dreams. Will tilts back, rests his head against the sofa cushion. “Does small talk ever get easier?”

“Not in my experience,” Spencer replies. 

“Mine either.” And because he’s not interested in the weather, he talks about something else. “So there’s Aaron, and your surrogate, is that —” Because this is what he’s interested in -- Spencer and the relationship he has with his surrogate. There’s a chance that if Spencer’s seen his surrogate more than once, there’s a relationship there beyond the transactional. “I was going to ask if there’s been someone else, outside of that?” He idly scratches Buster’s chin. Then there’s a rough tongue, a bit of drool that Will wipes away with the pad of his thumb. “But I’m also interested in him.” He pauses, gathers up all he wants to say. “In you and him, in you.” It’s possible Hannibal erased some of Will’s personal boundaries, or made him realize some boundaries look too much like walls.

There is also this: just because he fucked Spencer, doesn’t mean he knows him. Doesn’t mean he has a right to. It doesn’t mean Spencer owes him anything.

“Only the surrogate,” Spencer says, fiddling with the hem of his pant leg. “I work too much. Too much in my own head. If I disappear, if go anywhere, I need someone who can bring me back.” He taps the floor. Winston pads over, nuzzles the place below Spencer’s chin. “He doesn’t demand anything.”

“So tell me about him?”

Spencer leans back. Winston sits, curls up, his head on Spencer’s lap and then it’s the two of them and the two dogs, and this little tiny house and fuck if Will doesn’t want to roll onto his own back and beg someone to rub his belly. 

“You go first.”

As if this is a game of truth or dare. The rolling out of past lovers, experiences, relationships. Compare. Contrast.

“I was sixteen and he was older. I still don’t think he used me, and I don’t think he abused me, and for a year, until strangers seemed like a better idea, it was him.” At least Will’s smart enough not to tell Spencer the rest of the story, about how later, Garret Jacob Hobbs was found guilty of murder.

Smart enough not to tell the story of his daughter, Abigail. Presumed Omega, unexpectedly Alpha. Or not unexpected, because genetics. Because of how eye colour is dominant or recessive, a surprise unless you understand biology. Brown. Spencer’s eyes are brown. 

“Strangers until Hannibal?”

Strangers from seventeen years old through when he doesn’t even remember, twenty-five, twenty-eight. Maybe thirty. In the end, the number is too high to count and Hannibal’s never asked him. “Eventually I went on suppressants.” He’d fucked strangers, just for different reasons. For companionship and for release. Out of boredom. “I was celibate for a long time.” Buster grunts, his back leg kicking out, chasing rabbits. Will scratches behind his ear. “Then I met Hannibal.” 

Winston yawns. Spencer kisses the top of his head. “And then I met Aaron.”

“Who trusts your surrogate.” 

Spencer nods. “It helps he doesn’t live here. I see him every few months, he travels for work and has friends in the city.” He pauses. “You remind me of him, except in the ways that you don’t. He’s-” Spencer lifts his chin, “brighter.”

Will lets out a laugh, and maybe he should be offended but he’s also self-aware and isn’t that both a blessing and a curse. “And?”

_May we live in interesting times._

“He doesn’t let me take myself too seriously.” 

There is no world in which Spencer is not a storm cloud, in which he doesn’t know the rain, the same weather Will has navigated his whole life and serious is probably what he likes best.

Serious. Thoughtful. “And?”

“He uses his accent to pick up girls. Drinks too much and never met a scarf he doesn’t like and he’s told me that he’s half in love with a man named Will Graham.”

Fucking Dimmond. “Anthony?” Who is at least a little bit in love with Hannibal, too.

Spencer shrugs. Then he smiles and - “Small world.” 

It’s not an admission of Anthony’s affection that gives Will pause, just that… “I didn’t know he-”

Spencer doesn’t let him finish. “He was a surrogate before we met and not as much after. He was always kind to me and I tried to be kind to him. Aaron trusts him, there’s a sense he shouldn’t and still he does. I’m not sure Aaron’s acceptance would extend to another surrogate”

Because Anthony, for all his irreverence, is loyal. Dependable. Kinky as fuck and unlike Will, not hung up on roles, expectations. Desire is desire. One is as good as the other. But Will. Will needs rules around it. Walls, too. “Aaron trusts him because Anthony doesn’t believe in competition.” There’s also this. “And he doesn’t want to be anyone’s Daddy.”

“Anthony was never asked,” Spencer says. “He talked about you and Hannibal, sometimes. Without names. Told me stories. Taught me about who you were and how you were. It wasn’t until Hannibal and I worked together that Anthony told me your name. Until then, you were the man he told me stories about to help me understand myself—”

Will’s not sure he understood anything about sex or love or commitment until Hannibal. Until Hannibal opened a door to a room in which everything Will had ever been or could be, was enough. 

“And when you weren’t in heat?” Said maybe to avoid the depth of what Spencer just told him. To steer the conversation somewhere easier. 

“Sometimes.”

And for a second time there’s that pang, that jealousy, that Anthony had Spencer long before he did. That Aaron approved, and it was important to Spencer that he did, even though Aaron has no dominion over Spencer at all. “I wish you’d had my number.” It’s easy for Will to be this, to be open in ways he’s never been before. Honest in a way he couldn’t have been before he met Hannibal. 

“I have it now,” Spencer offers. “I can keep it, if you want.”

He does, but then there’s Aaron and the sudden realization that if there’s only the surrogate and only Aaron... Aaron who has never given into Spencer’s wants… Spencer didn’t spend his formative years trolling people in bars. 

“Tell me it’s okay that we…” What if this was just an experiment for Spencer? A test of the waters except Will knew it was that and Hannibal told him it was that but there’s how Will’s feeling and that is not, this is _not_ how he felt when he used to fuck people he didn’t know and this is not how he felt when he was being fucked by someone who didn’t know him and didn’t care.

People he’d never see again. People he assumed would fuck anything that moved because he wasn’t special, he was just an Omega begging for a knot. 

“It’s better than okay, Will.” Spencer shifts, nudging Winston, who doesn’t want to move but somehow rolls over enough that Spencer can slide out from beneath the dog’s weight and scuttle over to where Will sits. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was attracted to you.”

“I didn’t even kiss you.”

It was funny, when he’d realized it, now it just seems mean. Cruel. Forgetful. 

“So kiss me now.”

“Yeah?” Will says.

“Yeah,” Spencer repeats.

Will pats Buster’s haunch. The dog yawns, blinks twice and pads away over to Winston, who ignores him and goes back to licking his own paw. 

“Come closer.” Because there’s still the assumption of arrangement, the permission Hannibal gave and the way in which Spencer felt as Will fucked him. The way he said _Daddy_ , and the way the whole of Will warmed at the word. He moves to sit on the sofa, his feet flat on the floor. “On my lap.”

Spencer does as he’s told. It’s awkward and tricky, the both of them too long, too bony, but Will didn’t want Spencer comfortable. Just close. So close Will can’t help leaning in, breathing in, can’t help placing the smallest, gentlest bite on Spencer’s collarbone.

They’ll have to dress for dinner, but the borrowed t-shirt Spencer’s wearing, makes things easier. The way his pants are low on his hips, exposing the narrowest slip of skin, makes Will harder. 

“What if I took you over my lap,” Will whispers, sliding a hand up through Spencer’s hair as the other presses into the small of his back. “Do you like to be penetrated, Spencer?” He means with more than his cock. 

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing his cheek into Will’s jaw, nuzzling as he wriggles, as he lifts hips as if making space.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” In a sigh, as he licks at Spencer’s bottom lip. 

He doesn’t know what kind of altruism Hannibal’s extending, or how long this hall pass will last, but this is Will making the most of it. There’s also this- Hannibal _appreciates_. Hannibal desires. Hannibal demands Will’s sexual response, his urges, his wants. 

When Will is well-fucked and sated, or not sated, not entirely, he’ll still want Hannibal. Want the way his Alpha sets him right, puts him back in his place, he’ll want that space at Hannibal’s feet. Because Hannibal. And it will have nothing to do with Spencer, because Spencer’s perfect. 

“Kiss me,” Spencer says and then Will does. Soft, a gentle coaxing of lips and tongue, a sigh. A moan that’s more than a whisper, an urging press, the tangle of hair in Will’s fingers and the dig of nails into Spencer’s skin. 

There is a sweetness, a hesitation, the testing of Will’s tongue and the smile when he finds the sharp of Spencer’s teeth, the tiniest fang. He can’t help but stroke it with his tongue. It’s possible Will likes _sharp_. Likes the possibilities of it. The promise. 

It’s more than possible.

So Will licks, tastes. Slides his hands up Spencer’s side, shifts when Spencer presses, when his fingers slip underneath Will’s shirt and find the healing marks, the trail of Hannibal’s want, of Hannibal’s pleasure. 

Spencer pulls back and licks at his own mouth. Takes a breath and Will. Will waits. Waits for all of the tumblers to fall into place, the lock to unlock and this door open before he says anything at all. When he does, it is this—

“If you want to look, look.” 

There’s a moment. A breath. Then Spencer leans back, pushes up fabric. Will’s chest is a riot of bruises, his side marked by crimson dots, healing abrasions. Not wounds, they’re not deep enough. They’re not threats, but promises.

“You keep this a secret,” Spencer says. 

“Well, I don’t go shirtless at work.” Will pinches the fabric, exposing more of his skin for Spencer’s review. “You came here to see, it would be unfair of me not to show you.” 

“Are you ever unfair?”

“Occasionally.”

There’s a moment wherein they are both quiet. Wherein Will watches Spencer study the plane of his skin, the tiny scars, reddened marks. Circles made from teeth. Spencer touches each of them in turn. Presses hard enough that Will winces, inhales. Spencer blinks and presses his hand flat to the centre of Will’s chest.

“There are well-documented studies on the differences in endorphin-related sexual preferences within Alpha/Omega partnerships. Individuals presenting as Beta often have what is commonly referred to as _mid-mild_ , a right-leaning preference towards submission and/or pain as sexual stimulus-slash-sexual expression, whereas Omegas, especially those who are mated, tend to be _high-strong_ , left-leaning and, if they express what’s commonly known as _early-interest_ , these Omegas tend to only seek out relationships wherein this expression is already present or presumed available. If the inclination towards pain-as-pleasure presents within a bonded, mated pair, the amount of pain the Omega can endure tends to increase by twelve to fifteen percent when compared to non-bonded, but sexually involved couples who self-identify as masochists and sadists.”

“Those were a lot of words, Spencer.” But he smiles because he thinks he understood what Spencer was trying to tell him. Really, he could have just said _you’re a masochist,_ and Will would have agreed. He pushes Spencer’s hair back from his face, the golden-brown halo of curls. “Perhaps the studies indicate that within a bonded pair the amount of pain the Omega can endure increases.” Can Endure. “But I’d say _wants_ .” _Wants_ isn’t even the right word. “I’d say, in this house, that the amount of pain the Omega _needs_ to be sexually satisfied increased twelve to fifteen percent when the Omega bonded with the Alpha.” Or maybe it didn’t increase. Maybe it was always that high. Maybe Will just really needed Hannibal. 

“I like this house,” Spencer sighs, dragging a thumb over Will’s neck, over the scars there. “This isn’t a mating bite.”

Will’s fingers circle Spencer’s wrist and he pulls the boy’s hand away. “It’s an engagement ring,” he says. A mark made before Hannibal made their bond official. Before they mated, before Hannibal sank his teeth.

“Anthony-”

But Will doesn’t let him finish. “I’m sure Anthony.” Will can imagine just what Anthony liked when it came to Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Anthony liked to kiss me.” 

Will takes the hint. “Anthony likes to kiss me too.” But then he’s pulling Spencer close again, not quite sure how Spencer’s legs aren’t numb, bent and feet tucked, but he’s also not sure he cares. Not when it’s this, the gentle rocking of Reid over his lap, the needing way in which Spencer fists Will’s shirt.

Response is this - a sudden unexpected yelp as Will’s fingers curl in Spencer’s hair and he pulls, hard, snapping Spencer’s head back and away so he can cover Spencer’s neck in a zipper of teasing bites as Spencer’s hand works between his own legs, rubbing his cock through his pants. 

Will doesn’t move to stop him, just lets him stroke, lets him rock his hips and if they were just that much closer, Will’s own building arousal could rub against the seam of Spencer’s ass, they could rut and rub and come together like this and leave a telltale, unified mess. 

It’s easy, to push the pad of his thumb into the space underneath Spencer’s chin, demand the lift of his head and kiss him again, to kiss along his jawline and behind his ear, to drag the tip of his tongue over Spencer’s earlobe, to slip fingers into Spencer’s mouth and smile as the boy moans, his hand moving faster now.

“Are you going to come?” Uttered in a whisper. 

Spencer nods, says something but it’s not words. He just rocks again. 

Will pulls his fingers free, wipes saliva on Spencer’s cheek. “Answer me.”

“If you let me,” Spencer says and Will. Fuck does he want to say no, but it’s also this, he wants to see the mess Spencer makes of his pants, the wet, the stain.

“Keep going,” Will says. “Come for me. Make a mess of your clothes.”

Spencer sighs, lets out a low, needing whine and thrusts into the cup of his own hand. Will caresses his face, the line of his cheekbone, drags his thumb in the hollow and then slides it between Spencer’s lips because the hot-wet of Spencer’s mouth is too fucking good. The boy sucks softly, groaning as he spasms once before the whole of his body contracts and he comes under his own hand. Will looks down, the dark wet spreads. 

He can’t help but press there, can’t help but run fingers over the line of Spencer’s cock, over the damp fabric. “Such a good boy.” He replaces his thumb with his tongue and the kiss is deep and wanting. 

It’s like that for too long, this exploration that is sex and isn’t sex and the way Spencer responds. Reverence. Adoration. Will breathes in Spencer’s arousal along with his own, and fuck Aaron Hotchner for making Reid wait. For holding back, for making it harder than it has to be. 

“If he says no,” Instead of _maybe_ , instead of _not now_ . _Not yet_. “I’ll fucking kill him.” 

Spencer may not know this, but it’s not very often Will says something he doesn’t mean.

#

Eventually.

Eventually they untangled. Spencer wiggled his legs until the feeling returned and Will watched. A part of him, no small part, had wanted to feel the press of Spencer’s too-sharp tooth in the meat of his chest, in the space between Hannibal’s imprints. A tiny marker. A tiny reminder. 

“He’ll expect a tie.” Will says except it’s just just Hannibal, and Will wants to tell Spencer exactly what to wear.

“I assumed as much,” Spencer replies, shifting in the sticky of his pants. “I should shower.”

“I’ll come with you,” Will says. “If you’re good, I’ll let you wash me.”

#

Like much of the house, the bathroom is its own dimension. It’s own otherworld. Will follows Spencer, his hand to the middle of Spencer’s back. They avoid the kitchen. Will avoids the kitchen. 

There are things Will wants, decisions he wants to make that are nothing but assumptions. Spencer says nothing. Not even when Will tells him to strip, taps the counter and says, “Sit.”

But Spencer does. He sits and when Will comes and stands before him and taps his knees, Spencer widens his legs and Will steps between them. 

“Fear or regret?” It could be either. The chance that Aaron won’t, or can’t be the man Spencer needs. Regret, maybe that Will could be, even as he can’t be. 

Spencer shakes his head and drops his chin.

“Spencer,” Will says. “Look at me.”

It takes too long, too long for Spencer to do as he’s told. 

“No regrets.” Then he’s twisting fingers in fingers and sighing. “I wondered, maybe, if this was a test. ”

And there is this - sometimes honesty is the worst confession of all. “I don’t think you could love anyone that cruel.” 

Spencer is quiet a moment, his hands on Will’s hands, fingers curled into fingers. “What if it’s true, that every Omega only has one Alpha, and their bonding is reliant on genetics and biology, what if the theories are right?”

If this were he and Hannibal, if it was Will on this counter, then Hannibal would say ‘ _release or comfort_ ’. But Will doesn’t. Doesn’t have to, because what the boy needs is clear on his face, clear in the way he holds his body as if his insides are half-made of sadness. So Will doesn’t ask. Instead he slides the hair from Spencer’s face, a gentle brush of fingers and a kiss, just there to his forehead. “Then whatever you’re feeling, Aaron’s feeling it too.”

“And whatever I’m feeling, Aaron knows how to stop it.”

And then, it’s then Will whispers as he presses his lips to the space behind Spencer’s hair, turns on the tap and fills the sink with warm, soapy water. 

“I thought I was going to wash you,” Spencer says.

Will smiles, leans in and kisses him so softly it’s barely more than air. What he almost says, is, a _Daddy takes care of his boy_ , but instead it is this - 

the soft of warm cotton. Spencer lifts and Spencer shifts. Sighs when Will washes the inside of his thighs, when Will lifts his cock and washes the place between his legs. When Will kisses the top of his shoulder, a trail of wet, of tongue. When Will gently draws the wet cloth over Spencer’s chest, the lines of lean muscle, 

when Will finds the biggest of all their towels and opens it wide for Spencer to step into,

when his arms go around Spencer and Spencer buries his face into Will’s chest, 

when Will tightens his hold and draws the whole of Spencer into the safe of his arms, is when Spencer releases a sigh, is when Will feels a tear on his cheek and when, unequivocally, Will knows there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep him safe. 

#

Will wanders down the hall, goes through his and Hannibal’s closet. Brings Spencer something clean to wear, lays clothes out over the foot of the bed the same way Hannibal might. Intentionally. Enough choice that Spencer feels he has a choice but in the end, it’s all what Will wouldn’t mind him wearing. 

Neither of them speak. Between them is this impassable space, it is the space before Will came to Hannibal, when proving he didn’t need Hannibal meant understanding that Hannibal was all he wanted. 

So they move around each other. Will helps Spencer with his tie, the one piece of clothing he hasn’t borrowed. Spencer’s hair is a wild mess, barely tamed by the stroke of Will’s hand, the brush of his fingers. 

“Tell me if I’ve made it worse.” The want, the assumed loss of something Spencer doesn’t yet have. 

“You didn’t make it worse.” Then it’s buttons and zippers. The straightening of a collar. The tightening of a knot. “You made it clear. There is as much value in recognizing what one doesn’t want as what one does.”

“I think we know what you want.”

But there’s a shake of his head. “No, yes. But it’s beyond Aaron, too.”

Will can’t imagine a thing beyond Hannibal. Beyond his Alpha and so he waits, and then Spencer says -

“Have you ever seen Dirty Dancing?”

And if Spencer says this is the time of his life… “No babies in corners?”

“No babies in corners.” Spencer’s laugh brightens the whole of the room. “I meant something else.”

“Tell me,” Will says, as he wraps his hand around Spencer’s tie, makes a loose fist. 

Maybe it takes too long for Spencer to speak, or maybe it’s the twist of Will’s hand, the tightening of his grip and the way Spencer relaxes inside of it, but when Spencer speaks, it’s louder. More assured. “I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you.”

For a second, for the time it takes his heart to beat and air to fill his lungs, Will is quiet. But it is this-

_How I feel when I’m with you_

is not the same as

 _how I feel about you._

The only thing Will can think to say is - “I don’t believe in inevitable genetics.”

“Neither do I.” It comes out like revelation. 

The clock. The curved museum metal teak and nickel Hannibal winds on Sunday morning tick-tocks on the nightstand.

“We have fifteen minutes.” Before dinner. Before proper forks and the right wine glasses, before folded napkins and crystal water glasses and all the attention to detail Will has fallen in love with because Hannibal pays him the same mind. “Do what thou wilt.” 

Spencer tilts his head, a questioning query. Consideration. Touches Will’s face, the space below his bottom lip.

And goes to the floor. 

Will doesn’t let go of the tie. Instead he tugs once as if lifting Spencer’s chin and Spencer responds. Reverence and beauty. Enough to make his eyes burn. His mouth fills with salt and. then.

Button.

Zipper.

“Please?” Spencer says and Will wants to argue that fifteen minutes won’t be enough time but in reality five is probably enough because yes. Because the answer to Spencer’s please is an _of course_ , is _fuck, yes_. 

He answers in a nod, a gentle brush of hair.

There is the matter of the tie and the way Spencer uses two hands, the gentle care in which he slides Will’s pants over the curve of his ass and makes sure they don’t just fall to the floor. Instead he tugs and pulls and straightens their hems. Even though the fabric puddles around Will’s ankles, there’s a neatness to it. Hannibal would be pleased.

Running his palms up the length of Will’s legs, Spencer places one hand to Will’s hip, to the bone there as if it might make a good enough handle, a place for fingertips.

A place for bruises.

“Close your eyes.” 

Will glances down. There’s no mistaking Spencer’s nervousness. 

“Please?”

“Please what?”

It could be Will, it could be Daddy, he’d be happy either way. 

“Sir,” Spencer says and then he licks a quick wet line over the head of Will’s cock. “Daddy.”

This time, Will does as he’s told.

It’s the fabric that keeps him steady, the feel of the tie through his fingers, the soft of Spencer’s hair, how easy it is to grab and hold tight as a soft wetness covers him. The urgent demand of Spencer’s tongue and then his throat, contracting as he swallows. 

“Slow.” Fifteen minutes isn’t enough time. Not enough time for the sweet hot of Spencer’s breath, for the coaxing sounds he makes, the low moan that becomes a whine and the way he gently presses his tongue into Will’s slit, a lapping eager pull of salt and Will… Will pulls at the tie until Spencer gasps around his cock and it’s not _stop_

not

_wait_

Just

_Do what thou wilt_

Spencer lowers his head, the barest of movements, a puppy testing his leash. 

“Good boy.” 

The whole of Spencer’s body softens as he draws Will deeper, hollows his cheeks and works his tongue, pulling on Will as if -

“Should I fuck you, Spencer?”

He means Spencer’s mouth. It’s not that he doesn’t want to mount him again, fuck him over the edge of the bed until it collapses, it’s just this is where they are now and Will isn’t about to stop. 

Spencer nods, the mess of his curls rub over Will’s belly and he can’t help but smile. 

“Hold still,” Will says, adjusting the way he holds the tie. “Open wider.”

Spencer does. With one hand on the tie and the other to the back of Spencer’s head, Will ruts over Spencer’s tongue, dragging his cock over the perfect warmth of his mouth. It’s slow. Steady. Easy until it’s not, until Will fists Spencer’s hair and thrusts hard, slamming himself into the back of Spencer’s throat.

The sound the boy makes is perfect, a gagging groan. 

It’s good.

It’s not quite as good as the one Will makes as he comes, half-buckling as the whole of him sparks and the room fills with a bright, impossible light.

When the stars blink out, it’s just him and Spencer and a tingling in the back of Will’s throat. It’s Spencer, resting on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the tie a wrinkled mess around his neck. 

“We don’t want to be late for dinner,” Will says, and now it’s his turn to kneel, to lower himself so he can look at Spencer. Swipe at the spot just below his eye. A tear, he’s sure. 

“I think I need to find a new tie.”

“No.” Will taps the underside of Spencer’s chin. “You don’t.”

#

When they go to the dining room, the table is already set. There are water and wine glasses and too many forks. Four settings.

Just in case.

Will keeps his hand at Spencer’s back and Spencer stays close. So close they almost walk toe-to-heel. So close that when Will breathes, it ruffles the ends of Spencer’s hair.

“To the left,” Will whispers and Spencer goes where he’s told. He settles in the chair and studies the silverware. It’s easy to lightly touch his shoulder, to plant a kiss in the mess of his hair. “I’ll be right back.”

Hannibal is still in the kitchen. 

He doesn’t look up when Will enters, not when he’s plating, wiping the china’s edge with a pristine white cloth. Moving a leaf just slightly to the left. Then the right. When he takes a step back, he’s a painter admiring his work. 

“Hey,” Will says.

“Good evening, Will,” Hannibal replies, wiping his hands on the cloth before he folds it once and once again. 

Sometimes it is this. The movement of Hannibal’s hands. The way the man stands, the precise way in which he says Will’s name. It’s enough. Too much. “I-” What does he, what does _I_ , mean? He has been in this house but not this house. He has been in the space made for him and Spencer, a space without Hannibal. 

_Without Hannibal._

Is a knife twisting in the space beneath his tongue, in his throat. “Please,” he says, without knowing what he wants and then Hannibal.

Then Hannibal is no longer by the sink, no longer elsewhere. No longer separate, but there. Here. A hand to Will’s neck, to his waist. “I am right here, Will.” 

Will closes his eyes. Drops his chin. Breathes in Alpha. Breathes in Hannibal. Hannibal who kisses his temple and murmurs something soft, something foreign. Words Will doesn’t know, can’t translate, but their meaning is clear. 

“I love you,” Will murmurs.

“I know.” With Hannibal’s hand in his hair and the rough of his cheek, because Hannibal didn’t shave today. “For you did as I asked.”

He took care of Spencer Reid. “I want to keep him safe.”

“I know.” 

What happens is this - Will leans into Hannibal’s touch, into the warmth of his palm and closes his eyes.

“Shall you dine at my feet?” Hannibal squeezes, digs his thumb into Will’s spine. “Shall I feed you with my hands?”

Hannibal pretends it’s punishment, but for Will, for Will it’s comfort. Leaning into the warm of Hannibal’s thigh, the man’s hand in his hair, the man’s fingers to his lips, the mumbling approval. The way Will’s own hand wraps perfectly around Hannibal’s ankle. “Tomorrow,” Will says.

“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Hannibal replies and Will. The only thing he thinks to do is nod. Is nuzzle into the place beneath Hannibal’s chin, drag his own scruff over Hannibal’s jaw. 

“Yes,” he says. 

Hannibal kisses his temple. “You missed me.”

It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours but it took Will forty years to find Hannibal, and he could be glib, brush it off, away. He could laugh or claim indifference because wasn’t he just…. but instead he smiles and somehow his cheeks get pinker and sometimes adoration looks a lot like Will Graham looking at Hannibal Lecter. “Yes.”

“Your leash may be long, Will, but I am always holding the other end.” 

It manages to be a threat. A promise. A declaration. It manages to be love. Will goes up on his tiptoes. Not because he’s that much shorter, because he’s not. But because it makes Hannibal smile when he pretends to be small. He kisses Hannibal’s cheek. It’s easy to feel the corner of his smile. Easy to feel the change in Hannibal’s hand, the caress of fingers along his side and Will.

“Spencer’s hungry.”

“Then it’s good I cooked.”

#

Hannibal is polite. Hannibal is kind. Spencer tells stories of the BAU and Hannibal speaks of Will, of Will’s classroom and the rumple of his shirts, the imperfect of his ties.

Hannibal speaks of the rumpled tie and Spencer hides it with his hand. Smoothes it down. Spencer knows which fork and what spoon and what glass. Tells Hannibal a story about the first time he ate _Conill al Romesco_ , and then they talk about Gaudi, the Sagrada Familia, and how the stairs twist and turn and Will has never been to Barcelona.

Hannibal remembers the view.

Spencer tells them a story of Aaron Hotchner. 

It’s dark by the time Hannibal brings dessert, lemon sable cookies and tart goat cheese ice cream flecked with roast red cherries,. Drops of blood on snow. 

#

Hannibal does the dishes. It’s often Will. Usually Will’s job. Will who knows what goes in the dishwasher and what does not (most do not). He knows how Hannibal organizes the dish ware, the cutlery, the linens. How to fold a napkin. He used to sleep in a bed in a living room. Still does when they go back to Wolf Trap, when it’s time to leave the city, to see the dogs. To see the stars.

Spencer wanders the library. Will sits in a chair, drinking whiskey. Spencer doesn’t drink. There’s something in that, something in the way he declined that told Will it wasn’t just preference. 

Books are touched. Spines are pulled back from their shelves, pages are turned. In the distance, the clattering of silverware. A gentle closing of drawers and cupboards.

Spencer cradles a book to his chest. A shield. Protection. 

“It’s all right, if you want to read it.”

“Hrm.” Spencer turns. Looks down at the book, the worn brown leather. “Oh, yes, I guess, but it’s Sumerian.”

“And you don’t read —”

“No, I do. I mean, I know enough but, no. Not now.” Spencer traces the edge of the book with his thumb. Flicks his index finger against a rounded corner. “Do you ever just hold books?”

Never. “No.”

“Oh.” Then the book is back on the shelf. 

“Come here?” Because it’s easy to see that Spencer is feeling lost. Out of sorts now that they are only waiting. Waiting to see if Aaron makes it, if he’ll be delayed yet again. Will pats the side of the chair. Spencer seems to consider his options. Considers the space. Considers the other space, the chair of his own on the other side of the round glass table, a transparent space, but still _space_. 

He goes to where Will is. Sinks down and settles himself in the space between Will’s legs until there is no space between them…Will leans forward and kisses Spencer’s hair, curls his fingers and neatens the strands over his ear, tucking what he can. He drinks. He closes his eyes. 

Murmurs when Hannibal enters the room, plants his own kiss to the top of Will’s head. Reminds him it is late. What Will hears is not the time but that this time may be ending. 

He’s about to say something.

But then the doorbell chimes.

Instantly Spencer stiffens, presses a hand to the floor and half pushes himself up, but it’s Will’s hand that stops him. “Stay.”

Hannibal touches Will’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it.”

And that could mean anything.

#

Will finishes his drink. Idly strokes Spencer’s neck. He been this with Hannibal, he’s seen this on Hannibal, this expression, the one Will now wears. The way Will’s hand rests on Spencer’s shoulder as if Spencer is his pet. 

Leaning forward, Will whispers, “Daddy’s got you.”

The boy nods. Will means it two ways. He’s got Spencer, but then if it’s Aaron at the door, Aaron will protect him too. 

#

It’s a moment before shadows grace the door to the study, the office. A moment before Will looks up, before Will slides his hand from Spencer’s shoulder and looks to the threshold. The doorway is wide and in it stands a man Will doesn’t recognize. Sharp-featured and lean, with dark hair and dark eyes in a dark suit that makes him a shadow. His tie is a fault line, breaking up the bright white of his shirt.

It’s easy to wonder what it would take to make Aaron Hotchner fall apart, undone by a beautiful boy too smart for his own good and too kind for everyone else’s.

“Mr. Graham,” Aaron says.

It’s important to acknowledge Will first. His position of authority, where he sits in relation to Spencer, still on the floor at his feet, trembling against Will’s leg. Will taps Spencer once. The boy shifts and Will stands. “Mr. Hotchner.”

It’s then he notices Aaron is even taller than Hannibal. Not by much, but enough. But then Spencer is taller than them all. Even if just by his hair.

When Spencer stands he stays behind Will, just to his right. Will becomes a protective barrier. He opens his hand and Spencers fingers curl up. Curl in. Aaron knew Spencer was here. Aaron sent him here. Sent him to look. Even if the orders weren’t explicit. 

_Be careful what you wish for._

Maybe Aaron wasn’t smart enough to understand what Spencer would find.

“Go find Hannibal,” Will says, squeezing Spencer’s hand. 

Aaron steps into the room. Aaron steps out of the way. When Spencer passes him their hands touch, soft as breath. They don’t look at each other, they don’t say anything.

Neither does Will. Not until Spencer’s footsteps disappear down the hall. When he speaks, the first thing he says to Aaron is, “You’re making a mistake.”

“Or you did,” Aaron says. 

“You sent him to our door and told him to knock. What did you think would happen, Aaron? That he’d peek in the windows and walk away?”

Aaron unbuttons his jacket. Runs his fingers down the length of it. “I smell him on you.”

“You thought we’d offer him a book on the subject?” Diagrams and paragraphs. Scientific studies. Of course, Hannibal has both of these things. Of course Will has read them. “There’s something to be said for fieldwork.”

“I know where I sent him.” 

Sent. Like a good errand boy. “He loves you.”

“I know.”

“Then you know when an Alpha refuses an Omega—”

Hotchner takes a deep breath. “I’m familiar with the literature, Will.”

It may not be genetics, may not be just biology, but when an Omega finds their preferred Alpha, if the Alpha refuses their advances, it’s rare the Omega finds another mate. It’s rare for an Omega to choose someone else. “Neither I nor Dimmond deserve to be someone’s back -up plan.” Not Spencer’s, Aaron’s. “You set up Dimmond and somehow you set up me.” Spencer only told Will enough, enough to know that Aaron wanted Spencer to see the sort of life he was asking for, to be sure of what he wanted. “Spencer’s made his choice but there wasn’t a choice, was there?” Will drags a tooth along his bottom lip. Presses with his tongue. “There’s only whatever consolation prizes you deem him worthy of.”

“Or I deem you worthy of,” Aaron says. “You and Dimmond.”

Will snorts. “Are you telling me I come highly recommended?”

“Spencer’s been with one man in his whole life. One man until he walked through this door. I know where you touched him. I know what rooms you took him to.” Aaron pauses. “I know you mounted him.”

And would again. Command Spencer back onto his hands and knees and make Aaron fucking watch. “Because you won’t.”

“Because I _can’t_ ,” Aaron snaps and the whole of the room trembles in response. 

“Fear makes cowards of us all,” Will says, quietly. “He has Dimmond, he has me, if he wants me. Either, both of us.” Fucking together if Spencer wants. “We can protect him during heat. We can manage it, we can fuck him through it.” It’s intentional, the way Will spits out the word. “Three, four days? Four days every three months and the rest of the time? The rest of the time, you get someone who fucking adores you. Who you can worship in return.” How can Hotchner not see it? “You get the life you couldn’t have before.” Maybe it’s cruel. It’s also the truth.

“You hunt serial killers.”

“I teach at the FBI.” Aaron knows exactly what he does.

“Killed anyone?”

Will shrugs. Once. Just once. 

“I assume you understand group dynamics.”

Of course he does. It’s why Aaron just keeps talking.

“I remove a variable, the whole becomes unstable. My team works because our table has the right amount of legs. I can’t afford to take Reid out of the field and I can’t afford to follow him. I can’t afford the table to collapse. I couldn’t make my first marriage work because I couldn’t choose her over the work, what happens with Reid? When we’re connected, bonded? What happens then? I lose focus. I would choose him, Will. I would choose him. I would let people die to save him.”

So would Hannibal if it meant protecting Will. “So find another leg.” For this proverbial table.

“I’m not pulling Reid from the team.”

“I meant you.” 

“What I’ve worked for the whole of my life.”

“What life will you have if you let him go?” Didn’t Will ask himself the same thing? “He wants to be yours. He wants your mark on his neck. He loves you.”

“He will learn that love isn’t always enough.”

As if Spencer is a child. Will is quiet a moment. “No, he won’t.” Because if Hannibal had denied him? If Hannibal had shut the door on what Will was asking? Not enough whiskey in the world. “You can send him here, you can call Anthony, but we’re all just distractions. Eventually we’ll become reminders of the one thing he can’t have.” He taps his fingers to his thigh. “Eventually it all becomes resentment. What happens when Spencer finally decides he deserves something better and walks away? Leaves you and your team? What would death look like then? The bleeding of a heart or a bullet wound? Eventually all pools of blood look the same. You can’t have it both ways, Aaron. You don’t get to keep him and claim you don’t want him.”

“You and Dr. Lecter,” Aaron starts, but then he walks across the room, looks out the window. Two days ago Will’s hands were on the glass as Hannibal fucked him. “Work together?”

“Alongside.” Same crime scene, sometimes. 

“And if someone threatened him?”

“I’d tear out their throat with my bare hands.”

“And here you are.”

“And here I am.” Because Hannibal, because what they have together is worth whatever _maybe_. Whatever may be. 

“I never claimed I didn’t want him.”

Of course not. “So.”

Aaron runs a hand over his mouth. Fiddles with the drapes. Buttons his jacket. He doesn’t look at Will. “Get me Reid.” 

Will does as he’s told.

#

Hannibal and Spencer are in the kitchen, their voices low. Will wanders in and both of them look up. Expectant, interested. “He’d like to see you.”

Spencer nods and pushes away from the table. Will touches his wrist. Spencer gives him a half smile. 

It’s not until Spencer’s left the room that Hannibal speaks. “And so?”

“I was nicer than I wanted to be.”

Hannibal motions with his hand. _Come_. It’s easy. Comfort. Allows his body to relax. Will takes the seat to the right of Hannibal. Hannibal lays his hand on the table, palm open, up. Will covers the man’s hand with his own. It’s easy. Kind. The way Hannibal merely folds his fingers. Strokes his thumb over Will’s hand. A gentle, easing caress. The plate of cookies is half gone. 

“You care for the boy.”

Boy. “I do.” How or why. It’s not sex. Not when he gets laid on the regular. Daily. It’s not sex. It’s care. It’s protecting, it’s the way Spencer looked at him and the way they talked, the way Spencer was with the dogs. It was the way Spencer wanted what Will could give him and how Spencer wanted Will. It wasn’t some science experiment, some test of resolve. “Spencer knows what he wants.”

“And he wants it so badly he’s willing to settle for you.”

That’s the part that hurts. “Hannibal.”

There’s the squeeze of his hand. “And if I had denied you?”

There is that. “I would have fucked a lot of strangers.” He’d still be fucking strangers.

“And none of them would have been good enough.”

It’s not ego, it’s the truth. “No.”

“That you are not exactly who Spencer wants does not diminish who you are.”

“I could take care of him,” Will says.

“You may still yet, my love,” Hannibal answers. “For the night is not yet over.”

#

Spencer takes too long to get back to the study. To Hannibal’s office. It might be the shaking of his hands, the sour iron on his tongue. He digs his hands into his pockets. It would be worse if he hadn’t been with Will. Worse if he hadn’t felt the way Will made him feel. It would be worse to be anywhere else but this house. 

“Aaron,” he says from the doorway. His hands are fists. He taps the ball of his foot on the floor. 

“Reid,” Aaron says, then corrects himself. “Spencer.”

“Aaron.” Saying his name over and over doesn’t make it hurt less. “Just tell me to go.”

Aaron shifts. Removes his jacket. Rolls up his sleeves to just below the elbow. “I don’t want you to go.” He pauses. “You understand that one of us would have to quit the BAU?”

“You wouldn’t, we can —”

“No, Spencer. Listen. There’s not room for the both of us. JJ. Morgan. Prentiss. I can’t risk them for you.”

Both of them liabilities. The greatest risk for one another. “I know.”

“So I will quit the team.”

“You can’t,” Spencer says. “People would die.” 

“Then perhaps you should resign.” 

“I can’t,” he pauses. “People would die.”

“Full of yourself?” Aaron taps a hand to his thigh. “Or just full of Will Graham?”

The blush is immediate. Burns up his neck and over his ears. “Aaron.” 

“Come here, Spencer.”

Here. Here is maybe six feet but looks like six miles. Looks like a moat full of alligators, snapping at his heels. “There is the possibility of disassociation,” Spencer says, but he doesn’t take a step forward. This conversation needs to take place at a safe distance. “The act of mentally removing a part of, or the whole of oneself from a situation in order to remain objective.”

“And safe.”

“Yes, safe, but it’s how we do our job, Aaron. J.J.-”

“Jennifer is in a traditional family structure unhindered by the addition of Alpha and Omega biology.”

Unhindered. “If you don’t think Will worries —” of course her husband’s name is Will.

“William is also a police officer.”

Maybe Aaron will eventually put two and two together, but just in case he doesn’t, Spencer spits it out, “And so are we. We understand the risk, the situations we put ourselves in. You were married, Aaron.”

“I failed at marriage, Spencer.”

So maybe that’s it. “You can’t fail me,” he says, quietly. “I know all that you are.”

Finally, Aaron’s face softens. “I believe I asked you to come here.” 

He did. But there is the moat, the alligators of uncertainty. Spencer doesn’t know how to swim. The whole of this conversation is what Aaron would risk to save Spencer from drowning. “If I come to you now, I’m not leaving you later.” This is the moment. The decision Aaron has to make, the one Spencer won’t make for him by walking away. “I won’t ask again, Aaron.” Saying it leaves a hole, makes something open, raw and desperate in his chest. “This is the last time.”

The world quiets. Becomes only breath. Aaron runs a hand over his forearm, Spencer feels it like a bar across his chest. He longs for Aaron’s teeth in his neck, an imagined, searing pain that hurts so badly it’s transcendence. That can only be transcendence. 

“Come here,” Aaron says. “Please.”

Spencer gives his head a half shake but it might be just to get the hair out of his eyes. “Okay.”

Okay. Then he lunges, crashing into Aaron in a blink, and Aaron opens his arms and holds him, pulling him close. 

“What about—” 

“We’ll figure it out,” Aaron whispers, kissing his hair. “All of it.” 

#

Will is folding clothes in the master bedroom. Spencer sits on the bed, one leg under the other, picking at his fingernails. Will could start the conversation, but he does not. Two days ago he said hello to Spencer Reid and now he has to say goodbye. It hurts more than it should. 

“I could call Anthony,” Spencer says, breaking the silence.

Anthony. For Spencer’s heat. “You should call Aaron.”

“My heat is in two weeks, Aaron can’t find a new post in two weeks. There’s concessions for Alpha and Omega, but —”

“I know employer guidelines, Spencer.” The BAU would let Aaron move quickly, take immediate leave. Will shouldn’t be this prickly. This sensitive. He knew exactly what this weekend was. A way to solidify what Spencer wanted. A way for Spencer to maybe get the smallest glimpse of what he was asking for. Will doesn’t know if he passed or failed, if he helped or hurt or if Spencer knew, because of course Spencer knew exactly what he wanted before he knocked on their door and told Hannibal, well, whatever it was he told Hannibal is now between them both. A conversation neither of them has shared with Will. “Anthony will miss you.”

“Aaron suggested, he thought -” the boy takes a deep breath. “He might not always be available.”

Anthony, or Aaron? “When you’re in heat.”

Spencer nods. 

The laundry is a pile. The shirt he was folding a lump in his hands. “Just spit it out.”

“I’d like it to be you, this next time.” Spencer digs a thumb into his belly. “Please?”

So Will can be reminded of what he can’t really have, not really. Anthony a surrogate for Spencer, Will a surrogate for Aaron and Anthony both. “I already miss you.”

Spencer smiles. “It might make me miss you less.”

Or more. Heat is an intimate, impossible master. It opens the Omega, renders them raw. Will’s never gone through another Omega’s heat, never pretended to be Alpha, mounting and mating. “Will you call me Daddy?”

“Only if you call me boy.”

Will laughs, throws the shirt at Spencer and then crawls across the bed. It doesn’t take long, the mess of fabric, of moans and sighs. 

An hour later, there’s a knock at the door. Will stretches, yawns. Untangles himself from Spencer’s naked body. Somewhere in the middle of it, Will also lost his pants. His shirt. 

Aaron Hotchner stands at the door. Will rolls over and off the bed. He doesn’t bother with clothes. It’s challenge, it’s defiance.

Naked in front of another Alpha and yet his Omega doesn’t even notice. “He asked me and I said yes.”

Will doesn’t bother to explain, Aaron’s smart enough.

“I trust you,” Aaron says, glancing once at Spencer, who sleeps the sleep of a thousand tired, satiated Omegas. “Spencer trusts you.”

It’s then Will reaches for his boxers, slides them on. “If you’d denied him again, I told him I would kill you.”

“That would have complicated matters.”

Slightly. “It’s late.” He points to the bed. “You should sleep.” And then, and then. “Wake up next to your boy.”

Aaron nods. “Hannibal’s in the spare room.”

“He must like you,” Will says, before bending, planting a kiss to Spencer’s knee. “See you in the morning.”

#

“You gave him the master bed.”

Hannibal is under the covers, the nightlight on, book in his hand. “I didn’t want to disturb the children.” 

He’s sure Hannibal meant him and Spencer. “Are you tired?” 

“What did you have in mind?” 

“I missed you,” Will says, climbing onto the bed and wiggling in beside Hannibal. 

“You reek of sex.”

“Are you mad?” Because maybe, maybe Will did overstep boundary. Will sniffs. “Do you want me to shower?” 

Hannibal puts down the book. Shakes his head. “No.” He tugs at the blanket. Will shifts enough, rolls enough to get under the covers. “I want you here.” Hannibal places a hand to the middle of his chest.

It’s easy for Will to lay his head, to curl his arm around the warm, steady body of his Alpha. To close his eyes. To listen to the beating of a heart. To fall asleep as the pages turn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and again, this is for my dear friend @fannibaltoast, giver of oranges and fellow Shenanigram-er. 
> 
> As always, any grammar weirdness, errors, or when Spencer makes no sense is my fault, as part two is not beta read. 
> 
> thank you for reading, for all of the kind kudos and comments. :)


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